Stars

I walk beside the river
dark and green as bottle glass
it undulates silently

I scatter stars like breadcrumbs
some stick to the sky like white
bodies on black flypaper

some fall
and I step on them
crack them like snapped branches

some sink in the quiet green
bleed bright tendrils that glow
like little highways connecting fish cities

the moon eats the rest
stars disappearing in its
crescent smile

Hands I've Held (II)

The last day of school

we sat on the flowered lawn

and listened to Nirvana covers,

the band hot in their torn flannel but

too cool to take it off.

I spun a buttercup

between my spring-pale fingers,

gold petals pulsing with the beat.

I was drunk with the heat

and the music and the flashing flower and

the last day of school so

I confessed to you

just a boy

who sat next to me sometimes

who sat next to me now

“I’m sixteen years old,” I said

“and I’ve never held a boy’s hand.”

You took the flashing flower

twined your fingers through mine

said “Now you have.”

It was a kindness, like helping

an old lady cross the street,

but of course I fell in love with you

for a little while

until I gave my hand and so much more

too much, much too soon

to someone with hands bigger and weaker

and less kind than yours.

Mag 71

they do not recall

the messy heat of birth

their molten changeable nature

the way they screamed

steamed

stretched

after the slowly leaving heat

hot soft bodies growing cold

their durable changeability replaced

with fragility

heavy liquid weight transformed

into frail and flawless suspension

time flows like a fish

around their paralyzed forms

frozen

for our feasting eyes

Everland

Like Wendy, sad at her window
we mothers wipe small fingerprints
from glass, looking through it for hints

of pirates or pixies below.
Languishing eyes search empty skies
for childish dreams we should outgrow.

That old dream outgrew us long since...
and Wendy waits at her window.

I wrote this for One Stop Poetry's form challenge. This week's form is the Octain, which consists of eight lines and eight syllables per line. I won't bore you with the other rules, but I enjoyed working with it!

Click here to read the other octains and high octains submitted.

Hands I've Held (I)

Your warm fingers
angular and alien
hook through mine as if by accident.
We leave them there
our clasped fingers
and pretend not to notice our weightless hearts.

The day is gray and windy
trees fuzzed yellow-green with spring pubescence.
Cherry blossoms choke the gutters
drowning in Decemberlike rain.

Your fingers are like bare winter branches.

I wish I could go back to December
back to the bare simplicity
of naked branches and dormant earth
before the urges of spring
complicated everything.


For One Shot Wednesday.

The Burning

I keep the fire going

with sugar packets and gum wrappers

scrape the bottom of my purse

for goldfish crackers and crumpled tissues

a Starbucks napkin

a receipt for a swimsuit

I haven’t worn yet

I rip out the blank pages

from my spiral notebook

and feed them to the flames

silent people crowd the cold room

nodding at my notebook

too thin with straggling pages

they can’t help me

or don’t want to

but watch me struggle, scrabble for scraps

sticky lollipop sticks, ticket stubs

to that horrible show

that didn’t make me laugh

until there’s nothing left

nothing else to do but throw it in

my notebook

the words curling and darkening

fading into the satisfied smoke

For One Shot Wednesday

Warbler's Requiem

The robin's neck is broken
its beak splintered orange
having met
something harder than itself.
My youngest girl whispers
"She's sleeping."
Big sister knows better.
"Can we bury it?"
The toe of her boot,
the mud-caked suede gray-brown like feathers,
curiously nudges the spent bird.
Its soft roundness
gives way like overripe fruit
and she withdraws her boot
her face blank as snow.
I dig the hole under the holly tree
where the snowdrops have opened
and lower the once bird.
"Awww," says the little one.
"Ew," says the bigger one.
We sing it a song.
It notices nothing--
not the song
not the mocking worm swimming pinkly
in the freshly turned earth
not the tears on the oldest girl's cheeks
or that the little one has already run off,
already forgotten the robin.

For One Shot Wednesday

conscious stream

her excitement burbles and stutters
the same words crashing
incessantly incessantly
against the unreasonable boulder

trying to say it all
to say everything at once
pitch rising and rising
like vocal water vapor
consonants jumping from the stream
little silver fish glinting

can't recall what she was saying
but the way she said it
stubborn waves breaking free
rushing out
the rubbled boulder beaten
her blue eyes a waterfall

written for one shot wednesday

Believer

I hear my child call in the night,
Eyes crazed, cheeks flushed with fever.
I won't let her go without a fight.

Lips curl, tongue rolling bright
She begs me, please, believe her
I hear my child call in the night.

Her righteous shudders of delight,
Agonies of conviction seize her.
I won't let her go without a fight.

Her illness, a wall of impossible height,
Her fortress, a ring of believers--
I hear my child call in the night.

I watch her creep toward the light.
Jesus, don't make me grieve her.
I won't let her go without a fight.

Her faith convinces her they're right--
My faith says they deceive her.
I hear my child call in the night.
I won't let her go without a fight.


This poetry form is called a villanelle, and it's a lot of fun to work with. I wrote this villanelle for One Spot Poetry's Monday Poetry Form. Click here to learn more about the villanelle, and read other poets' entries.

The Pillow Case

Thanks to Lovely Annie, I discovered a new poetic form this morning: the etheree. An etheree is a poem with ten lines, with an additional syllable for each line. It starts with one syllable and ends with ten. I love playing with new forms and had to try this one out. Here is my all-too-autobiographical account.

The Pillow Case

So

I sew

the pillow

case. The whir whir

blur of the Kenmore's

pace makes the needle jab,

the needle stab, the thread grab

the fabric, a cambric, candent

and delicate, so delicate it

can't handle the tread of the thread and shreds.

One Shot Wednesday

Thursday Poets' Rally: Week 36

The Loss of a Dream

Floorboards creak.

She creeps to me where I lie asleep,

tears on her cheeks, voice cracked with sleep.

"Nightmare?" I ask, sweeping the sheet

aside, moving my feet.

No, no, she weeps. Not a bad dream.

It was a lovely dream,

the best dream. A sweet, sweet dream.

Yet she grieved

because this perfect dream

she could not keep.

Bathtime

Hundreds of fleeting bubbles pop

with the sweep of an arm,

the splash

of a foot.

Punctuated with little girl voices:

"Pretend we're princesses,"

"Pretend we're getting married."

Mounds of luminous bubbles

pile high on their heads--

delicate, ephemeral crowns.

Hundreds of fleeting bubbles pop,

the soft crisp sound

of their imaginary taffeta skirts.

"Pretend we're sea monsters."

A sparkling, bloodless massacre

of hundreds of fleeting bubbles, popping.